(08-30-2012, 08:55 AM)Meg Wrote: I like the part where a few examples are given as to what the Church teaches and has to be believed, and then this is followed by examples of where Catholics can have different opinions. I think that the Holy Father must get tired of dealing with dissenters!

So was Father Ratzinger able to have differing opinions on the Oath Against Modernism he took? Or was that Oath something he had to believe and be bound by, if he chose to take the oath?

I'm a little confused about the last line of the oath.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God.

I don't see much room for a different and opposing opinion there. Please explain.

(08-30-2012, 08:55 AM)Meg Wrote: I like the part where a few examples are given as to what the Church teaches and has to be believed, and then this is followed by examples of where Catholics can have different opinions. I think that the Holy Father must get tired of dealing with dissenters!

So was Father Ratzinger able to have differing opinions on the Oath Against Modernism he took? Or was that Oath something he had to believe and be bound by, if he chose to take the oath?

I'm a little confused about the last line of the oath.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God.

I don't see much room for a different and opposing opinion there. Please explain.

I don't think that the pope has deviated from the oath that he took. If the Church says that you are allowed to believe that he has deviated from it, then fine.

But the thread is about Judases in the Church. I, too, wish that they would just get out. And the Holy Father seems to be saying that they are dishonest if they stay but don't believe. I hope that the Judases will think about that.

(08-30-2012, 09:52 AM)Meg Wrote: I don't think that the pope has deviated from the oath that he took.

Really? Explain the logic underlying that conclusion.

I've included the oath above.

Do you simply not wish to believe that he did, or is there some rational explanation as to why he did not "deviate from the oath".

This is where your brand of Catholicism begins to worry me. It is one thing submitting your reason to the faith when you cannot understand (like the mystery of the Trinity for example), but it is something else entirely to submit your reason when your reason tells you the thing you are submitting to is a falsehood. When you simply say "I don't think that the Pope deviated from the oath he took", that appears to me to be as intellectually dishonest as a pro-abort saying that a picture of an aborted child looks just like a blob of jelly to them. If you read the oath above and compare it to +Ratzinger's screeds and deeds, and, if you also read the article I've linked to by John Vennari below my first post, then I really don't understand how you can simply brush it off like that. Not if your sincerely considering the truth.

For the life of me, I cannot see how Father, Bishop and Cardinal Ratzinger did not deviate from that oath. His writings directly undermine and contradict what he swore and oath to uphold and defend when he took that oath.

(08-30-2012, 09:52 AM)Meg Wrote: But the thread is about Judases in the Church. I, too, wish that they would just get out. And the Holy Father seems to be saying that they are dishonest if they stay but don't believe. I hope that the Judases will think about that.

But the Pope does not believe either. He does not believe in the things he swore to uphold in the oath against modernism. Why should dishonest people, leave a dishonest Church headed by a dishonest Pope? (A Pope who has also lied to the entire world about the Third Secret of Fatima).

Of course, if they all get out and kindly vacate the buildings and the churches, monastrys to the Catholics who hold to that oath against modernism and essentially reject most of the documents of Vatican II and the spirit of renewal, then that's great. Until then it would be a rather Pyrrhic victory. You'll just end up with a Church that is anti-abortion but humanistic and bowing down to man in every other way.

(08-30-2012, 08:44 AM)Mithrandylan Wrote: It didn't seem to me like the Holy Father is doing anything really great here. Sounds more like people are propping it up to be that.

The pope's reason for why non-believers should leave is because that's the honest thing to do.

True, it's incredibly dishonest to cling to a religion you don't believe. But what of scandal? He says Judas would have been better off had he left Christ right away? What kind of hogwash is that? Does that make any sense on any level? That Judas' problem was sticking around while he didn't believe. The flip side of that is that Judas' life would have improved had he left Christ right after he stopped believing.

It's all very odd.

But I don't think the problem is as simple as people who don't believe anymore. When you take it to the level of clergy, a huge problem is that not only are there leaders who don't believe, they're set on destroying the Church. Whatever their motivations are, the modernists one and only goal has always been the overhaul of Christ's Church. And the leader of that Church here on earth makes an appeal to honesty saying that they should just leave?

No, they should be kicked out, excommunicated and anathematized. At least once in a while. HF makes it sound like some sort of revolving dorr where you just come in and out and in depending on how you feel-- and while true that sinners are always welcomed back to the fold, we must remember that this is the Church militant. Our leaders exist to protect the flock and the faith. Simply suggesting that non-believers leave is not enough.

Well, I wanted to say something along these lines (personal conscience, whether properly formed or not, is the supreme law, even above Christ Himself), but it is often taken the wrong way--that is, as negativity--so I decided not to, but I agree.

(08-30-2012, 10:24 AM)ggreg Wrote: Until then it would be a rather Pyrrhic victory. You'll just end up with a Church that is anti-abortion but humanistic and bowing down to man in every other way.

Don't we already have that?

Pope Paul VI, Address During The Last General Meeting Of Vatican II, December 7, 1965 Wrote:We prefer to point out how charity has been the principal religious feature of this council. Now, no one can reprove as want of religion or infidelity to the Gospel such a basic orientation, when we recall that it is Christ Himself who taught us that love for our brothers is the distinctive mark of His disciples (cf. John 13:35); when we listen to the words of the apostle: "If he is to offer service pure and unblemished in the sight of God, who is our Father, he must take care of orphans and widows in their need, and keep himself untainted by the world" (James 1:27) and again: "He has seen his brother, and has no love for him; what love can he have for the God he has never seen" (1 John 4:20).

Yes, the Church of the council has been concerned, not just with herself and with her relationship of union with God, but with man -- man as he really is today: living man, man all wrapped up in himself, man who makes himself not only the center of his every interest but dares to claim that he is the principle and explanation of all reality. Every perceptible element in man, every one of the countless guises in which he appears, has, in a sense, been displayed in full view of the council Fathers, who, in their turn, are mere men, and yet all of them are pastors and brothers whose position accordingly fills them with solicitude and love. Among these guises we may cite man as the tragic actor of his own plays; man as the superman of yesterday and today, ever frail, unreal, selfish, and savage; man unhappy with himself as he laughs and cries; man the versatile actor ready to perform any part; man the narrow devotee of nothing but scientific reality; man as he is, a creature who thinks and loves and toils and is always waiting for something, the "growing son" (Gen. 49:22); man sacred because of the innocence of his childhood, because of the mystery of his poverty, because of the dedication of his suffering; man as an individual and man in society; man who lives in the glories of the past and dreams of those of the future; man the sinner and man the saint, and so on.

Secular humanism, revealing itself in its horrible anticlerical reality has, in a certain sense, defied the council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none.
The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the spirituality of the council. A feeling of boundless sympathy has permeated the whole of it.

The attention of our council has been absorbed by the discovery of human needs (and these needs grow in proportion to the greatness which the son of the earth claims for himself). But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind.

(08-30-2012, 03:04 AM)Vox Clamantis Wrote: “Judas,” said Pope Benedict, “could have left, as many of the disciples did; indeed, he would have left if he were honest. Instead he remained with Jesus. He did not remain because of faith, or because of love, but with the secret intention of taking vengeance on the Master.”

Even when trying to sound tough, he cannot remain within the bounds of tradition. The Fathers and other commentators don't say that Judas desired vengeance on Our Lord. He was merely avaricious. And the Gospel of St. John is explicit on this. He was a thief. A common explanation is that he betrayed Our Lord thinking that He would work a miracle as He had always done before when the Jews tried to capture Him, and evade their grasp. Judas was trying to provoke a confrontation (and get paid handsomely in doing so) which would hasten the coming of the Kingdom, which of course he perceived in worldly terms, and therefore would bring personal glory to himself and the other Apostles, and lots of money into the purse. This is why when our Lord was captured and condemned, Judas despaired. He was surprised by the outcome.

(08-30-2012, 10:24 AM)ggreg Wrote: Until then it would be a rather Pyrrhic victory. You'll just end up with a Church that is anti-abortion but humanistic and bowing down to man in every other way.

Don't we already have that?

Sure we do. But there is little point in a father suggesting his sodomite son leaves his "Catholic" home, when the father is openly committing adultery openly with the au-pair. The mainly hetrosexual younger children are far more likely to become adulterous under their father's bad influence than become sodomites under their older brother's; after all. Anti-abortion Catholics rarely become pro-abortion Catholics. Those battle lines were drawn long ago and people picked sides.

Those Catholics who are pro-abortion have been told during the course of their formation (cough cough) that their conscience is supreme. They are exercising freedom of conscience, as they know and understand it. According to their understanding, God condemns nobody provided they were doing the right thing for them at the time. Jesus was a nice guy who forgave hookers and tax collectors and shunned nasty legalistic pharasees who wanted to curb people's freedoms with man made ancient laws.

If +Ratzinger was not faithful to Tradition and teachings of the past, then why on earth should they be faithful to them now? They never took an explicit oath to be against abortion. He did take an oath against modernism and then promptly broke it.

What is this religion of popolatry? Obey the current Pope and his particular interpretation or personal hermeneutic during his pontificate? ???

Heck, these apostates and pro-aborts might as well wait around then, because as far as the bookmakers are concerned they have odds-on of getting their pro-gay marriage and pro-abort Pope at the next conclave.

If Ratzinger can subvert the church to his personal hermeneutic then why can't they when they have the chance?

(08-30-2012, 11:19 AM)ggreg Wrote: If +Ratzinger was not faithful to Tradition and teachings of the past, then why on earth should they be faithful to them now? They never took an explicit oath to be against abortion. He did take an oath against modernism and then promptly broke it.

What is this religion of popolatry? Obey the current Pope and his particular interpretation or personal hermeneutic during his pontificate? ???

Heck, these apostates and pro-aborts might as well wait around then, because as far as the bookmakers are concerned they have odds-on of getting their pro-gay marriage and pro-abort Pope at the next conclave.

If Ratzinger can subvert the church to his personal hermeneutic then why can't they when they have the chance?

It's strange because when I was a teenager some 30 years ago and reading and understanding the Traditionalist arguments in my mind, this was well understood, the arguments were well formulated and all Trads I knew, agreed with them. You could go to any Traditionalist parish in the world, (most were SSPX back then) and hear these well constructed arguments pointing to obvious flaws in modern Roman thought, practice and teaching. JP2 was a heretic and we had to soldier on until God sorted it out.

Look at Fisheasters now and you have self-described "Traditionalists" who back in the 1980s would have been considered conservative neo-liberal Catholics with their overly charitable interpretations of every statement and error promulgated by the hierarchy.

I think in between the dying off of the stalwarts, who remembered militant Catholicism from their youth, or them becoming Sede-Vacantists as the most militant tended to, and the 30 years of just being worn down by it all, what passes for Traditional Catholicism now is a lot more "foggy" that what passed for Traditional Catholicism 30 years ago.

We'd better have a freaking Chastisement soon or I fear that in another 30-50 years our "traditionalist" off-spring will be praying with the Jews, attending Traditionalist homosexual weddings and trying to limit infanticide to children who have not reached their 3rd birthday.